With the wights banished, the fog burned slowly away from the downs.  The mist cleared until Aragorn could see slopes of dead grass and dark grey skies dimming to night.  

Halbarad knelt on the other side of Gandalf, his eyes wide with fear. Aragorn gave his cousin a quick once-over—he bled freely from a cut on his shoulder, but nothing more—before he turned his attention back to Gandalf, the wizard’s eyes glassy and unfocused. Blood still seeped steadily through his robes, and Aragorn brought out his dagger to cut away the grey fabric. The gash spread the length of his ribcage, just deep enough he could see traces of white bone. He hissed in dismay; this was within his skill as a healer, but not at the edge of an abandoned barrow. He quickly unfastened his cloak and tore off a length of it with his dagger. 

“Help me,” he grunted to Halbarad, who took the makeshift bandage and carefully slid the under Gandalf’s back. Aragorn tied it off as tight as he could, fear for the wizard rising steadily in his gut. “Everything’s back with the horses.” 

“I can get them, bring them here. Or at least, get our gear back. It’s your healing kit you need, aye?” 

“And water, any we have.” 

Halbarad nodded, and took another strip of cloak fabric from Aragorn. He winced as he tied it around his arm, but when he moved it experimentally it seemed to hold well enough. “I’ll be back as quick as I can.”

“I’m…perfectly capable of walking there, you know.” Gandalf’s speech was slurred. The old man tried to sit up, but he fell back with a gasp of pain. Aragorn bit down on his lip and met Halbarad’s eyes, silently urging him to hurry. His cousin nodded once and sprinted away. 

Aragorn turned back to look at Gandalf and took the wizard’s hand in his own. The skin was gnarled and marked with age, rough calluses beneath his palms that belied the feeble appearance of his body. Gandalf tried to sit up again, and this time Aragorn caught his shoulder so that when he fell back it was into Aragorn’s lap. His hat had fallen off.  His long grey hair lay wild about his face and blood seeped into the ends of his beard. 

“Rest, Gandalf.” Aragorn slipped into healer mode, a task he’d become all too practiced at, these past years, his voice as steady and comforting as he could make it. “You’ve been spending too much time amongst us Rangers to try and walk away from this.” 

“My dear boy, I…do not spend nearly enough time with Rangers. Just ask your grandmother.” 

“Adanel would say you’re making up for it now,” Aragorn looked down with a faint smile, one Gandalf tried to return before his head fell back. His face had gone white, his hand thrumming hot beneath Aragorn’s own, and Aragorn checked over him in sudden alarm. The wound to his ribcage was severe, but it was too soon for any infection or fever to set in. The blue of Gandalf’s eyes had faded to a watery sort of grey, but no new blood seeped into the makeshift bandage beside Aragorn’s left hand.

“You will find I am no ordinary patient, son of Arathorn,” Gandalf muttered. “No one will begrudge you, if I am beyond your care…” 

“I am quite a good healer, you know,” Aragorn said, affecting indignation in a way he hoped would amuse the wizard. “Let’s wait for Halbarad before we make any pronouncements.”

The minutes seemed to stretch into eternity, but at last Halbarad came thundering down the narrow path atop a horse, leading Aragorn’s own Maebrôg behind him. He brought Aragorn his healer’s kit and a full waterskin. Aragorn slowly, carefully cleaned and stitched the wound closed. Gandalf remained silent throughout, beyond the occasional grunt of pain, a fact that worried Aragorn more than anything. His eyes closed by the time Aragorn finished, his breathing slow but steady, and Aragorn forced himself to his feet, his legs cramping from kneeling over his patient for too long.  

“How fast can we get to the Angle?” he asked Halbarad in a low voice. He suspected the answer, but his cousin knew the wilds of Eriador better than he. 

“Four days, if we ride hard.” A great bruise had formed around Halbarad’s right eye, and he looked down at Gandalf in worry. “Can he take that?” 

“He’ll have to,” Aragorn said grimly. “I’d take him to Rivendell if I thought he’d last that long. I fear the wights did more damage than by the blade.” 

Halbarad nodded, and he turned a critical lieutenant’s eye to his Chieftain. “And you? What damage did they do to you?” 

Aragorn shook out the last of the tingling in his legs and leaned over to grasp at his thighs, exhaustion suddenly sweeping over him. Adrenaline gone, the whole right half of his body ached from where the wight had tossed him across the barrow. His shoulder especially throbbed, but there was little that could be done for it beyond the stinking bruise balm Ivorwen made. At least he hadn’t dislocated it. He glanced back up at Halbarad, whose left sleeve had a growing stain of red, and scowled.  

“Not as much as they did to you. Let’s close that gash with something better than a rag.”  

***

They rode hard through the night and into the next day, stopping just long enough to rest the horses. Gandalf rode in front of Aragorn on Maebrôg, too weak to hold his own in the saddle. Aragorn’s arms soon ached from holding him in place to make sure he didn’t fall over. The wizard remained semiconscious as they rode across the plains, but he still burned hot to the touch, punctuated by strange flashes of cold when they stopped to rest.  

“Foolish,” Gandalf muttered once. “Foolish to have done it. Trust hubris to…” 

But he trailed off without finishing the sentence, and Aragorn could only murmur pointless reassurances into Gandalf’s ear. 

Crossing the Hoarwell proved the tensest part of the journey, and Aragorn thanked the stars that there had been no recent storms to swell the river. The moon shone high above them, and the water ran calm enough they could ford it with little trouble, but leading the horses left him and Halbarad both soaked and shivering. Gandalf remained dry atop the horse, but he could no longer stay upright in the saddle. Moonlight illuminated the sheen of sweat on his face, and Aragorn glanced back up at the clear sky, the stars twinkling around the moon. Elbereth, guide us. Keep him safe. He only had to last another hour before they reached home.

The walls that protected the Angle were cleverly camouflaged within their surroundings. To an approaching stranger, it appeared as if the fields between the Hoarwell and Loudwater narrowed into impassable crags before they joined at their point. Only once bearing down upon them could one see that behind the rocks stood strong walls that guarded the settlement beyond. 

Aragorn guided the horse carefully through the hidden path, gazing up at the top of the walls to see if he could spot any sentries. No light shone above, to guard against enemies, but he let out a low series of whistles, knowing they had likely been watched their whole approach.

The gates swung open just as Aragorn came up to them, illuminating a handful of Rangers carrying torches and Nethril at their center, a hood cast over sleep-tousled hair. Her face changed from relief upon seeing Aragorn to horror at the sight of Gandalf, before she masked it quickly with the businesslike expression he knew so well. A wild-haired Captain Meldroch came up to take the reins of the horse from Aragorn, and he dismounted as carefully as he could before he lowered Gandalf from the saddle. 

“We’ve got to get him to the healer’s cottage. Is my grandmother awake?” 

“Both of them.” Nethril came up and took Gandalf’s other arm, her face white. “Adanel went to fetch Ivorwen.” 

Aragorn nodded to a stretcher that had been laid out on the ground. They maneuvered Gandalf onto it and brought him across the settlement to where the healer’s cottage stood, soft yellow light emanating from its windows. The sharp, clean scent of herbs overtook him when he crossed the threshold. Ivorwen stood in the main room beside a bed, her sleeves tied back and a headscarf over her greying curls. Her face fell at the sight of Gandalf, and she helped Aragorn maneuver him onto the bed. 

“What happened?”

Aragorn explained as quickly as he could. “I stitched the wounds up as best I could, but something else plagues him. The blade may have been poisoned, or…”

“There are evils of this world beyond the healing powers of a Dúnadan.” Ivorwen’s voice quavered, but her hands were steady when she cut away the ruins of Gandalf’s robes and removed the bandage Aragorn had tied around his wound. 

The massive gash appeared red and inflamed around the sutures, rendering the wizard’s breathing slow and labored. His chest rose and fell with each gasp, his filthy, sweat-soaked beard nearly reaching down to the wound, and Ivorwen pushed it aside. She crushed a sprig of athelas above a bowl of steaming water and the fresh, calming scent infused the room. Carefully, she cleaned away dirt from the road that still clung to Gandalf and reapplied a dressing to his wound. 

Helplessness overtook Aragorn as he watched, and he shook from exhaustion and cold, his wet clothes clinging to him unpleasantly. He hardly cared, with Gandalf lying prone on the bed. He wished he could take over from Ivorwen to continue what he’d begun, but her experience far surpassed his own, her knowledge of herblore greater than any living Dúnadan.  All he could do was stand and wait. A cold, soft hand slid into his own, and he looked to see that Adanel had joined them, her eyes hollow when she looked down at Gandalf. He intertwined his fingers with her own, her skin paper-thin over bones. She squeezed tightly, lifting their hands so she could kiss his roughened, bloodied knuckles.

At last, Ivorwen stood, splotches of blood on the apron of her dress. Her eyes appeared haggard when she met first Aragorn’s gaze, then Adanel’s. “He will live through the night. Tomorrow, I cannot say.” 

The bottom dropped out of Aragorn’s stomach at the thought, and Adanel gripped his hand so tightly his fingers crushed together. 

“How?” she rasped. “How, in Eru’s name, can a creature defeat such a man?” 

“He is not a Man,” Aragorn murmured. “Nor were those wights. His power is greater than theirs, but not infallible.” 

He ran a free hand through his tangled hair, sudden despair shooting through him at the memory of Gandalf’s collapse. If he had not been held by the wights’ cursed spell, if he had broken free from their voices just a moment sooner… 

Ivorwen embraced him tightly, ignoring the damp state of his clothes. “You did well, Aragorn. Get yourself some dry clothes, and some rest. I will watch over him until morning.” 

Aragorn opened his mouth to protest, but Adanel was already steering him towards the door, and he knew he could not battle both his grandmothers at once. 

Outside, Nethril paced in agitation, her breath clouding in front of her from the chill night air, and when she saw them she threw her arms around Aragorn. Behind her, he saw Halbarad approached them slowly, grasping at his injured arm. His face held a wordless query for Aragorn, and then sagged in relief when he nodded. 

“You’re soaking wet,” Nethril said in surprise, before she turned to hug her brother as well. “Both of you.” 

“Went for a bit of a swim.” Halbarad’s mouth quirked upward in a smile, but he winced when he moved his arm to return Nethril’s embrace. 

She murmured something inaudible, her face buried against his chest.

He ran a gentle hand over her hair before he kissed the top of her head. “We’re safe, little sister. Let that be enough.” 

***

Dry clothes did little to warm Aragorn, chilled as he was to the bone.  Though he spent the rest of the night in his own bed, a fire blazing in the hearth, sleep would not come. The softness of the mattress and the weight of blankets did little to quiet his restless mind, still halfway down the road at the healer’s cottage. He finally fell into a fitful doze just before dawn, but awoke after only a few hours from a dream of darkened barrows plagued by corpses holding the banner of Gondor. 

When it was clear he’d get no further sleep, he rolled onto his back and stared at the dark timbers that supported the roof above him. Weak sunlight shone through the shutters, enough to illuminate the carvings on the beams, of eagles and ships and other glories of Númenor. He’d been born in this room, inherited it when he’d returned to his people, but he spent so much time in the Wild that after five years, it had only just begun to feel like home. 

But home it was, and the thought gave him comfort against whatever grief he might face outside its sturdy walls. A basin of water stood on an end table near the hearth, and, rising, he splashed some water on his face before he made his way down the hidden stair that led from the Chieftain’s room into the kitchen. 

Nethril and Adanel sat at an oaken table in the center of the kitchen, steaming bowls sitting untouched in front of them both. Aragorn’s stomach growled at the smell of porridge, and he headed straight for the pot that hung over the cookfire. Nethril pushed him a small jar of honey when he sat down, and he spooned some into his own bowl, the added sweetness a balm to his tongue after weeks on the road. 

“How is he?” he asked.

Nethril shook her head. “No change. Ivorwen’s asked you to look in on him, when you have a moment.”  

“A bath first, I should think,” Adanel said dryly. “One whiff of wild Ranger would send him straight to Mandos.”  

I’m glad someone finds all this humorous, Aragorn thought with a dark scowl. He opened his mouth to give an irritated retort, but at a warning look from Nethril he fell silent. His grandmother had appeared as haunted as he’d felt, last night. He still could not banish the shattered look upon her face, the day they'd battled his father's reanimated corpse, and he knew better than most that her acerbic comments often masked great feeling. 

Besides, he could not deny the appeal of getting clean, his brief plunge into the Hoarwell having done little to wash away the weeks of accumulated grime. Yet impatience nagged at him while he waited for the water to heat, and he rushed as fast as he could, rather than luxuriating in the warmth. His hair was not fully dry before he pulled on a clean tunic, jerkin, and breeches, and he hurried out the door back to the healer’s cottage. 

Ivorwen, by the looks of it, had not slept. Dark circles formed under her eyes, her headscarf damp with sweat, and she trembled when she took his hand between her own. Aragorn had never known Ivorwen to falter—she had always been the pillar of his mother’s family—and he drew his arm around her shoulder to lend what strength he could. She led him back to Gandalf’s room, the scent of athelas sharper than it had been last night, and he stopped at the threshold to see the wizard lying asleep on the bed. 

He looked almost comical, dressed in a long Dúnedain tunic rather than his grey robes, and it struck Aragorn once more how frail he looked, and how mortal. Stories of Gandalf stretched back to the first Chieftain of the Dúnedain, and it was almost impossible to fathom that after all that time, the wizard’s great deeds might end with him. 

“I have done all I can,” Ivorwen said softly. “It is his own strength that will determine what happens now. I—“ 

Aragorn looked sharply at Ivorwen as her voice faded, her large brown eyes glinting bright with unshed tears. He took her face between his hands, sudden fear stabbing through him. “Is it the sight, Nana? Have you dreamed what is to come?”  

“Not with him, dear one. I do not need foresight to know that if Gandalf the Grey dies, a shadow will extend upon these lands we may be powerless to face. All we can do now is hope.” 

Aragorn started at the sound of his childhood name, and he wondered if Ivorwen’s use had been deliberate. The truth of her words weighed almost physically upon him, but he sent her to take some rest of her own while he stood watch over Gandalf. He stirred once or twice, his hands twitching feebly at his sides, but when Aragorn laid a hand upon his forehead it was still hot to the touch. He brewed him another potion for the fever and changed his bandages for good measure, though he knew it would do little good against whatever poison the houseless Maia had used upon him. 

Despair crept up upon him, so great he could no longer bring himself to imagine a future where the wizard lived. There was only one person now who could possibly save Gandalf, and he was miles away, in the valley Aragorn had once called home.  

Ivorwen came to relieve him after a few hours. The sun hung low on the horizon when Aragorn stepped out into the brisk air. A pall had settled over the Angle, as though even the smallest child knew what was at stake. Those few who were outside did not stop him or call greeting as he strode back towards the gates. Restless agitation overtook him once more, and when he climbed to the top of the ramparts he found Nethril standing there, wrapped in a fur-lined cloak with her hair whipping loose in the wind. She did not move when he came up beside her, and he followed her gaze out past the crags to the fields and forest beyond, the leaves nearly all stripped from the trees.

“Halbarad is better versed in sloth than you,” Nethril remarked. “He’s still a rock in that bed.” 

“That cut to the arm weakened him, I think,” Aragorn said. “Stubborn idiot wouldn’t let me stitch it closed.” 

“You two certainly are a pair. Nana Ivorwen still hasn’t forgotten that arrow wound of yours.” 

Aragorn winced, recalling the injury four winters ago he’d tried in vain to push through, only to end up with an infection and six weeks abed. He’d been young and foolish, or so he said to justify himself, but something told him if it happened again he’d react in much the same fashion. 

Nethril snorted at the expression on his face, before she sighed and turned to stare out at the horizon. “When this is over, one way or another, there’s things we need to discuss.”

Aragorn nodded. He had been so consumed with hunting the wights he had not yet given thought to how they might reorganize the Angle’s vastly depleted resources. The attack had exposed their weaknesses, but they could not afford to pull forces back from Fornost to the north or Swanfleet to the south, both having lost men to orc raids that summer.  A year ago, they’d talked of abandoning the Swanfleet settlement, but they could not afford to pull forces back to the Angle if they wanted to keep the Greenway clear. Between orcs, wights, and wargs, Sauron’s forces only seemed to multiply. 

“Brécharn is back from Gondor.” Nethril's voice broke through his dark thoughts, and he looked at her, startled.  

"When?” 

“Not two days ago. It’s a wonder you didn’t meet on the road. The news he brings from Ecthelion, Aragorn, I—“ 

A horn blast cut her off, and they both glanced startled at the sentry standing a few feet away. “Lone rider coming in from the northwest. Not one of ours.” 

“Morgoth’s balls,” Nethril groaned. “What now?” 

Aragorn followed the sentry’s gaze until he spotted the faint, tiny outline of a horse galloping towards the Angle, the rider’s long hair flying out behind him. He stared until the horse came into sharper view, and his suspicion grew as he took in the gait and lack of bridle around the head, as well as the fine white coat. 

“That’s an elven rider,” he blurted. Nethril looked at him in surprise. 

“Elladan or Elorhir? I’ve never known one to ride without the other…” 

“They wouldn’t. Not unless the other was gravely injured or worse.” 

A pang shot through his chest at the very thought, and he pushed it aside swiftly, forcing his tired mind to think. The twins were with Dírhael north of Fornost, and he’d bet his right eye that horse was Asfaloth. The rider was dark-haired, which meant Glorfindel had lent his precious horse to someone in great need, of even higher station than the great Elf-Lord. Which could only mean…

“Open the gates,” he commanded. “Now!” 

He raced down the steps two at a time, practically tripping in the soft ground at the bottom of the wall. Nethril caught him by his jerkin to steady him. His heart pounded in his chest, and he stood motionless in front of the gate, watching while the guardsmen hauled the great doors open.  

The white horse galloped through the gates—it was Asfaloth—and was brought to a sudden halt by the rider, who dismounted with a swift grace. Nethril drew in a sharp breath beside Aragorn when the rider cast back his hood, and Aragorn’s knees practically gave out at the sight of the fair Elven face with ancient eyes, their warmth and kindness hidden beneath the urgency of his look. Relief crashed over Aragorn, followed closely by shame and longing born of the long years away. 

Aragorn bowed low, his right hand held to his heart in an instinctive gesture of respect and love. “Atarinya, ” he breathed.

“Estel,” Elrond murmured, and drew Aragorn into a tight embrace. 

Aragorn breathed in the scent of pine and the river as he lay his head on Elrond’s shoulder, the strength of his love so familiar, as if they’d only been parted a few months instead of years. Elrond pulled back to grasp Aragorn firmly by both shoulders, his eyes bright with a father’s love, before he nodded in the direction of the village. 

“Lead me to him, quickly.”